The neuroscientist is so passionate about walking, and our collective right to go for walks, that he is determined not to let the slightest unfortunate aspect of urban design break his stride. So much so, that he has a habit of darting across busy roads as the lights change. “One of life’s great horrors as you’re walking is waiting for permission to cross the street,” he tells me, when we are forced to stop for traffic – a rude interruption when, as he says, “the experience of synchrony when walking together is one of life’s great pleasures”. He knows this not only through personal experience, but from cold, hard data – walking makes us healthier, happier and brainier.

The power to call a border poll rests with the Secretary of State Karen Bradley, who could do so at any time if it appears "likely" to her that a majority would vote in favour of it, but earlier this year she said the conditions had not been met.

Kevin Meagher says Brexit makes it much more likely to happen, and that there are other contributing factors too:

Lack of devolved government in NI for almost two years, due to a financial scandal over a green energy scheme
Changing demographics in NI, which could see a Catholic majority by 2021
Liberalisation of Republic of Ireland on social issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion

It is a new thing: the first time in 800 years of Anglo-Irish relations that Ireland has had more clout. No wonder the Brexiters and the British government found it impossible for so long to even recognise this new reality. They operated – and some of them continue to operate – under the old rules, in which the game would be settled between the big powers, and the interests of a small country such as Ireland could be easily shoved aside. The Irish would get a few platitudes about peace but the real deal would be done between London and Berlin...
Yet it has not been like that. In part, this is because of simple arithmetic: Ireland is not isolated, it is part of a bloc of 27 states. There is a basic lesson here for the Brexiters: even a very small country inside the EU has more influence than a much larger country on the outside. In part, too, it is because of basic statecraft. The Irish government and diplomatic service, backed by a near-unanimous consensus in the Dublin parliament, had a very clear sense of where Ireland’s vital national interest lay, and hence of what they needed to achieve.

It is tempting for some British politicians to argue that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, but it is important to recall that the Good Friday agreement was signed in April 1998 and lodged with the United Nations as a formal treaty. Twenty years of relative peace and enhanced prosperity have followed, and it must surely be understandable that people on the island of Ireland are adamant that the agreement should not be a pawn in the Brexit negotiations, not least because Northern Ireland’s population voted remain.

The UK government committed on 8 December 2017 to “the avoidance of a hard border, including any physical infrastructure or related checks and controls”. Moreover, it also agreed to a backstop agreement, which means that in the absence of any other agreement “the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the internal market and the customs union which, now or in the future, support north-south cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 agreement”.

This solemn commitment must be honoured, and the EU negotiators have made it abundantly clear that until there is a robust solution for the Irish border, there will be no future agreement with the UK on trade.

Ireland is already among the laggards of Europe, being one of only five EU states which is certain to fail to meet its 2020 emissions targets. Unusually, however, Irish transport and agriculture emissions are actually rising sharply, thanks to government policy supporting a rapid expansion of its dairy herd, as well as major ongoing investment in a car-dependent transport infrastructure that has exacerbated urban sprawl.

"In the intricate game of skill played between terrorists and the authorities, as we discovered in both Palestine and Ireland, the terrorists have already won an important battle if they can provoke the authorities into using overt armed force against them. They will then be in a win-win situation. Either they will escape to fight another day, or they will be defeated and celebrated as martyrs. In the process of fighting them a lot of innocent civilians will certainly be hurt, which will further erode the moral authority of the government.

"Who here will ever forget Black Sunday in Northern Ireland , when a few salvos of small-arms fire by the British Army gave the IRA a propaganda victory from which the British government was never to recover ? And if so much harm can be done by rifle fire, what is one to say about bombing ? I can only suggest that it is like trying to eradicate cancer cells with a blow-torch. Whatever its military justification, the bombing of Afghanistan, with the inevitable 'collateral damage' it causes, will gradually whittle away the immense moral ascendancythat we enjoyed as a result of the bombing of the World Trade Center.

In the High Court on Tuesday, his counsel, Michael Byrne SC, told the judge that liability in the case was conceded.

The settlement also took into account Mr Doroscan was not wearing a cycle helmet, counsel said.

While a helmet was not legally required, that issue had to be taken in to account in the assessment of the case and would account for about 20 per cent contributory negligence on the part of Mr Doroscan.

Afterwards he was quoted as saying, “I’m happy to commemorate all those who died fighting for an independent Ireland.” The meeting had been organised by the “Wolfe Tone Society” which was set up in London in 1984 to support Sinn Fein and its policies, including support for the IRA*

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Classifying Corbyn's statement that he would commemorate all those who have died in the cause of Irish independence as "support for the IRA": just a tad crude? Would there have been a Good Friday agreement without the left's recognition of the justice of the republican movement?
Of course, that doesn't stop anyone misrepresenting Corbyn's views in the way that you suggest. But it would still be a misrepresentation. The English electorate may well be ignorant enough to find such over-simplification attractive; but that is hardly a recommendation. Fortunately the electorate has other sources of information than admen's billboards these days.
Neither would participating in a "minute of silence" (however convened) be equated with endorsement in most reasonable people's minds: politicians should pause for reflection more often.

AROUND 12:45 p.m. on April 29, 1916, Nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell left 15 Moore Street in Dublin to deliver the surrender message that would end the Easter Rising. Inside the house, where the division of Irish rebels under the command of Padraig Pearse had retreated, her comrades in arms watched her walk away through the bullet-riddled streets, fearing she would be shot down. But as she neared the British military outpost, the firing eased and Ms. O’Farrell accomplished her mission without injury.

Ms. O’Farrell’s act of bravery has become one of the iconic moments of the Rising, not so much for the act itself, but for how it was documented.

Renewable electricity helped Ireland avoid 2.6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2014, and is now one of the single biggest contributors to carbon dioxide emissions reductions in Ireland. Without renewables, power generation emissions would have been 23% higher.

According to SEAI, renewable electricity generation, consisting of wind, hydro, landfill gas, biomass and biogas, accounted for 22.7% of gross electricity consumption and avoided €250 million of fossil fuel imports in 2014.

The existence of his case emerged as a result of a report by The Guardian, which claimed there was co-operation between British spies and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s government, whereby information was extracted from rendition victims as evidence and used in secret court proceedings in London.

Guardian Journalist Ian Cobain describes MI6 and MI5’s close involvement in the secret abduction of Gaddafi’s opponents, their subsequent torture, and how it played an active role in their interrogation and intimidation of Libyan dissidents living in Britain and Ireland.

The Guardian report specifically mentions the case of a British citizen, along with an Irish resident, Hassan, who were arrested and beaten.

The British citizen, Abdel Hakim Gellani, says he was also interrogated by two British men who declined to identify themselves.

I started to post comments around different websites, the Irish Times in particular, also The Journal, and occasionally a couple of others. But as well as posting the comments there, I’d share them on Facebook, Twitter and this blog. I tried to write them in such a way that they could make sense as standalone pieces: so that you didn’t have to read the article to make sense of the comment.

When writing them I would also try and be as politely adversarial as possible, without coming across immediately as a troll. There was an element of trolling to it though; I had no interest in getting involved in a debate with any of the other commenters. What interested me, on the whole, was trying to undermine the premises of the piece itself. To use a sporting analogy, as far as I could, I tried to get in with a crunching challenge early doors.

Despite a federal court order directing Microsoft to turn overseas-held email data to federal authorities, the software giant said Friday it will continue to withhold that information as it waits for the case to wind through the appeals process.

Your gracious and genuine curiosity, your evident delight in that visit, including its equine dimension, made it very easy for us to express to you and, through you to the British people, the warmth of neighbourly feelings. It laid the basis for an authentic and ethical hospitality between our two countries.

Admirably, you chose not to shy away from the shadows of the past, recognising that they cannot be ignored when we consider the relationship between our islands. We valued your apt and considered words when you addressed some of the painful moments of our mutual history, and we were moved by your gestures of respect at sites of national historical significance in Ireland...

As the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur wrote, to be forgotten is to die twice. We owe a duty to all those who lost their lives, the duty to build together in peace; it is the only restitution, the only enduring justice we can offer them.